ICANN approves plan to vastly expand top-level domains

ICANN has approved a process that will allow anyone to register new top-level …

Do you find the reliance on things like .com, .net, and .org too restrictive? Haven't found a country code that floats your boat? ICANN, the organization responsible for managing the domain name system, has decided that it's time for a more flexible system for managing the top-level domains that help translate IP addresses into human-readable form. The plan has been in the works since 2009, but it has experienced a series of delays. Now, though, the organization has finally approved a process for handling new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), and will begin accepting applications in January.

Prior to ICANN's existence, gTLDs were pretty limited: .com .edu .gov .int .mil .net .org and .arpa, although a large collection of country codes also existed. In 2003 and 2004, however, the organization began allowing a cautious expansion, adding things like .name and .biz (along with some oddities like .aero and .cat). And, just this year, it approved the .xxx domain after a rather contentious consideration period.

ICANN apparently recognized that there's a continued interest in expanding gTLDs, and set about creating a mechanism to handle requests as they come in, rather than to consider them in batches on an ad-hoc basis. And at least according the FAQ site that it has set up, the organization expects a busy response: "Soon entrepreneurs, businesses, governments and communities around the world will be able to apply to operate a Top-Level Domain of their own choosing." (More details, including an Applicant Guidebook, are also available.)

Still, the FAQ also makes it clear that grabbing a gTLD won't be an exercise in casual vanity. Simply getting your application processed will cost $185,000 and, should it be approved, you'll end up being responsible for managing it. Do not take this lightly, ICANN warns, since "this involves a number of significant responsibilities, as the operator of a new gTLD is running a piece of visible Internet infrastructure." Presumably, service providers will take care of this hassle, but that will simply add to the cost of succeeding.

ICANN suggests the changes will "unleash the global human imagination." At best, the unleashing will be pretty limited, with a maximum of 1,000 new domains a year. Some of these will undoubtedly show signs of imagination through a clever use of character combinations in some URLs. Mostly, however, we expect that the new gTLDs will simply provide domain registrars with the opportunity to suggest you buy even more domains when you register a .com or .net.

Blatant money grab. Hey guess what $COMPANY_NAME? You can't license *.$COMPANY_NAME so you'd better register every relevant domain in the $COMPANY_NAME gTLD for the low low price of $185,000 per domain. What an utter crock.

.cat isn't an oddity. We, Catalan people, have been asking for this additional domain extension for a long time.

There is a lot to be said/found about Catalan language, culture, people and presence on the Internet. My Google Apps, Facebook, iOS, Firefox, Windows (not my primary OS), etc ... they are all in Catalan. Just google for details on catalan presence online and in the real world.

I understand the basic reasoning behind the TLD structure, but why not work on doing away with it instead of expanding? It's not like the TLDs mean what they used to anymore except in a few cases (.mil for example), so why keep making it more convoluted? Much as I hate to admit it, AOL's single name system actually made it easier for end users back in the day. Yes, I realize what I just said and I will deduct 1,000 internets from my personal account immediately. But why fight with www and .com/net/ly/cat/org/whatever? They're just making it more complicated in the long run, with more possible failure and more DNS noise.

The only real positive I see coming is for DNS and decentralization of TLD management. If more and more TLDs move out of the US, it'll be harder for the Fed to cut off and redirect traffic away from "infringing" sites, etc.

I agree smartfud, TLDs were a mistake from the get-go. I understand why they did it that way originally (it was easy to divide up the work of maintaining it if the name was right there), but I wish the concept had been dropped and more effort put into working out alternative scaling solutions instead.

Blatant money grab. Hey guess what $COMPANY_NAME? You can't license *.$COMPANY_NAME so you'd better register every relevant domain in the $COMPANY_NAME gTLD for the low low price of $185,000 per domain. What an utter crock.

Well, based on item 3.16 in their FAQ, it looks like they've been taking trademarks into account. So if some random person wants to apply to administer .google, Google will get a chance to object first. Of course, we don't know the details, but I imagine the process will be very closely monitored, just so all the companies trying to protect their trademarks don't get really angry at ICANN.

.cat isn't an oddity. We, Catalan people, have been asking for this additional domain extension for a long time.

There is a lot to be said/found about Catalan language, culture, people and presence on the Internet. My Google Apps, Facebook, iOS, Firefox, Windows (not my primary OS), etc ... they are all in Catalan. Just google for details on catalan presence online and in the real world.

.cat isn't an oddity. We, Catalan people, have been asking for this additional domain extension for a long time.

There is a lot to be said/found about Catalan language, culture, people and presence on the Internet. My Google Apps, Facebook, iOS, Firefox, Windows (not my primary OS), etc ... they are all in Catalan. Just google for details on catalan presence online and in the real world.

There are a few countries in the world where several languages, and cultures, co-exist. Just to name a few off the top of my head: Canada, Belgium, Switzerland and India. I'm even tempted to include the UK in here. Then again why is .cat not an oddity?

Oh dear god, NO! As Control Group said, the problem isn't a lack of TLDs, it is a lack of properly-informed users. Throwing thousands and thousands of new TLDs into the pool is only going to make things much, much worse.

Here's hoping that the application fee stays high enough to stay out of the reach of phishers.

If Facebook owns the TLD .facebook then won't just "http://facebook/" work as their URL? That alone will be worth a couple hundred thousand for the big sites. All the big internet properties will probably get their own TLDs, and ICANN will reap millions in fees.

However, the importance of domain names is already fading since most browsers do a Google search to find a simple word typed in the location field. The actual domain name being visited is becoming less and less relevant.

.cat isn't an oddity. We, Catalan people, have been asking for this additional domain extension for a long time.

There is a lot to be said/found about Catalan language, culture, people and presence on the Internet. My Google Apps, Facebook, iOS, Firefox, Windows (not my primary OS), etc ... they are all in Catalan. Just google for details on catalan presence online and in the real world.

In all honesty, I can't recall ever even needing to use any TLDs except the original ones (.com, .net, .org, .edu plus maybe .int -- NATO site is on www.nato.int) and the country specific two-letter ones when necessary (including the European domain .eu).

In fact, company sites not hosted on .com or a 'reputable' country domain generally tend to arouse suspicion in me. Actually other than xxx, I don't even know what's on the list of TLDs that have been added a few years back.

I think even a company does register .whatever, they will still in the end have to provide some kind of redirect from .com or something like that. The end result -> I still have no reason to even care about this, especially since as mentioned above, if it's a company name I can usually just type it in the browser bar and it will find it for me anyway.

Let's face it half the people who apply for GTLDs are going to be either phisers, pirates, or channers. A couple hundred grand up front will deter the more respectable ideas like .anime or .cosplay until someone decides to commercialize the GTLD itself but I wouldn't put it past moot & co to raise a couple hundred grand just to control .chan.

I would not be surprised if .apple is among the first batch. Maybe .google, .facebook, too.

They would be the only ones to be able to afford this.

don't forget .ms .ibm and .cisco ... but yea the first 1000 will be 100 each from the above listed companies. so when i want to go to face book i will now type welcome.facebook or ihate.facebook or even worse facebook.facebook , haha... what ever happened to the good old days of just thecompanyineed.com

In all honesty, I can't recall ever even needing to use any TLDs except the original ones (.com, .net, .org, .edu plus maybe .int -- NATO site is on http://www.nato.int) and the country specific two-letter ones when necessary (including the European domain .eu).

I got a good chuckle out of .cat. A TLD dedicated to a language that has less than 100,000 monolingual speakers and about 11 million (about 0.15% of the world's population) multilingual speakers? Make sure you register .nav to capitalize on the Navajo market!

.cat isn't an oddity. We, Catalan people, have been asking for this additional domain extension for a long time.

There is a lot to be said/found about Catalan language, culture, people and presence on the Internet. My Google Apps, Facebook, iOS, Firefox, Windows (not my primary OS), etc ... they are all in Catalan. Just google for details on catalan presence online and in the real world.

Yes. The Catalan were absorbed by the Iberian empire- remnants scattered but mostly in one province of Spain local time. They hope to secede with their current efforts to form own country. Seems absurd as plenty of already created countries up for sale... bargain prices. Please explain Pierre?